d naturally taken the left
fork.

"To the right!" shouted Aristide.

McKeogh pulled up and turned his head with a look of protesting inquiry.
I intervened with a laugh.

"You're wrong in your geography, M. Pujol. Besides, there is the
signpost staring you in the face. This is the way to Montpellier."

"But, my dear, heaven-sent friend, I no more want to go to Montpellier
than you do!" he cried. "Montpellier is the last place on earth I desire
to visit. You want to go to Nimes, and so do I. To the right,
chauffeur."

"What shall I do, sir?" asked McKeogh.

I was utterly bewildered. I turned to the goat-skin-clad,
pointed-bearded, bright-eyed Aristide, who, sitting bolt upright in the
car, with his hands stretched out, looked like a parody of the god Pan
in a hard felt hat.

"You don't want to go to Montpellier?" I asked, stupidly.

"No--ten thousand times no; not for a king's ransom."

"But your four thousand francs--your meeting Mme. Gougasse's train--your
getting on to Carcassonne?"

"If I could put twenty million continents between myself and Carcassonne
I'd do it," he explained, with frantic gestures. "Don't you understand?
The good Lord who is always on my side sent you especially to deliver
me out of the hands of that unspeakable Xantippe. There are no four
thousand francs. I'm not going to meet her train at Montpellier, and if
she marries anyone to-morrow at Carcassonne it will not be Aristide
Pujol."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"We'll go to Nimes."

"Very good, sir," said McKeogh.

"And now," said I, as soon as we had started on the right-hand road,
"will you have the kindness to explain?"

"There's nothing to explain," he cried, gleefully. "Here am I delivered.
I am free. I can breathe God's good air again. I'm not going to marry
Yum-Yum, Yum-Yum. I feel ten years younger. Oh, I've had a narrow
escape. But that's the way with me. I always fall on my feet. Didn't I
tell you I've never lost an opportunity? The moment I saw an Englishman
in difficulties, I realized my opportunity of being delivered out of the
House of Bondage. I took it, and here I am! For two days I had been
racking my brains for a means of getting out of Aigues-Mortes, when
suddenly you--a _Deus ex machina_--a veritable god out of the
machine--come to my aid. Don't say there isn't a Providence watching
over me."

I suggested that his mode of escape seemed somewhat elaborate and
fantastic. Why couldn't he have slipped quietly